


Moonage Daydream

by castironbaku



Series: An Awesome Mix of HideKane [4]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Hide Works For The Pierrots, M/M, Pizza Boy!Hide, Shironeki - Freeform, Singer!Kaneki, Slow Dancing, kanehide - Freeform, where do all these ideas come from
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-07-13
Packaged: 2018-04-09 01:59:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4329474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/castironbaku/pseuds/castironbaku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Working the night shift at Pierrot Pizza used to be a drag for several reasons. Mostly though, it was the staff. It used to be hard to find something to while the hours away. Then a certain Ken Kaneki starts placing huge orders at two in the morning and these nights, Hide finds himself looking forward to the next call.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moonage Daydream

**Author's Note:**

> Quite long, but really, I’ve been thinking about this idea for a while now. Listen to the song because it’ll be awesome-r if you do I promise ehehehe~  
> I feel like I put too much backstory, but, well, this was once a multi-chapter idea. I'm just glad I got around to it. Shironeki is slightly OOC, I think (bc he smiles and laughs more than he ought), mostly because, again, backstory...

Working the night shift at Pierrot Pizza used to be a drag for several reasons. Mostly though, it was the staff. Hide hadn’t expected the Pierrot crew to be a bunch of bipolar oddballs. He hadn’t signed up for a sadistic co-worker who delighted in making him scrub the oily, Tabasco-covered floors at 3 AM. Neither had he signed up for a manager-by-night who liked spending her hours sprawled half-naked on her office sofa, watching her latest horror DVD rental and laughing her head off with a glass of red wine.

Poster children for impeccable food service before midnight; sulking, cruel, and slasher-movie-obsessed demons after midnight. Like a couple of demented Cinderella’s, their magic didn’t last past the clock striking twelve.

There is no room for jokes in Pierrot Pizza unless they mention “blood” at least once or have something to do with harming others. Hide learns this quickly enough and doesn’t mind. Roma and Itori are attractive enough, but they’re just not his type, personality-wise, so it’s not really that big of a deal that he starts bringing manga or homework to while the hours away until sunrise, when manager-by-day, Nico, comes in with Ganbo and Souta to relieve Hide and the girls of their duties.

These nights though, Hide finds himself staring at the telephone by Roma’s side more often than he normally should. If things go as he anticipates, it rings at almost exactly 2 AM, like clockwork. There is no telling _which_ day it will ring, but the time it does is always the same. The bleached blond puts down his manga at 1:55 and stares intently at the phone until 2:05. If, at any point in between 1:55 and 2:05, the phone doesn’t ring, he picks up his manga again and returns to where he left off.

The name of the clockwork caller (That does have a nice ring to it—get it, _ring_? _Ring_ ing telephone? _Ring_ any bells? At least biting back his horrible jokes at work has taught Hide to think them through properly.) is Ken Kaneki. He started calling Pierrot Pizza about four, five weeks ago, just a little while after Hide began working at the place. Roma told him (before midnight on a Thursday, so she was still pretty sane) that Kaneki was a regular caller until three months ago. Then, for a long while, he’d stopped placing orders for some reason or another.

Ken Kaneki is difficult to describe. Or rather, it’s so easy that there’s just too much to say. Hair as white as snow piled up in Hide’s old back yard in Kanagawa over winter, light gray eyes that tell you straight up that they’re not what they seem, nails painted black to match his almost constantly black apparel—it’s like he’s stepped right out of an urban legend high schoolers tell each other over a couple beer bottles.

Kaneki is a singer. He’s the lead singer of this obscure band Hide’s never heard of—The Blue Ghouls or something to that effect. Hide has never heard him sing, though, because he always arrives right when the band is starting to clear out of the “studio.” They usually hang out at Kaneki’s place after practice, too, and they do love their Pierrot Pizza. Mostly because one of their members, this shady-looking guy named Uta, has a discount card from when he used to work there.

Hide’s delivered pizza at Kaneki’s door eight times and at his band’s practice area another eleven. They’ve made small talk. The usual— _You look kind of young, why work late hours? Don’t you have school? Oh, you’re in college? Which one? Kamii? Wow, that’s amazing._ Then the minute-long conversations became five-minute-long discussions. _So you got this job because…? An accident? Smashed your bike_ and _your headphones? Ouch. You didn’t get hurt, though? That’s a relief._ And the five-minute-long discussions became ten-minute-long ones that his band-mates start complaining about. _Do you read? Not much? You should try Sen Takatsuki. One of the very best, you know. If I’m not practicing with these idiots, I’m reading Sen Takatsuki. You should try some of his works sometime. It’ll be worth it, I promise._

Tonight, Hide’s halfway through “The Black Goat’s Egg” when the clock ticks five minutes to two. He doesn’t really hate the mind-bending quality of Sen Takatsuki’s writing, but the whole premise just seems a little too heavy and, more often than not, he catches himself blinking and re-reading whole paragraphs because he didn’t quite catch the author’s meaning. But Kaneki seemed to like it. Hide folds the corner of the page where he’s left off and closes the book. He stares at the cover for a few seconds, tracing the kanji of the title with his eyes and thinking, _This is the sort of thing he likes, huh?_

As per his nightly ritual these days, Hide stares at the clock until the minute hand hits twelve and the hour hand settles on two. He tells himself he’s not really hoping for anything. It’s just that he finds it really amusing how Kaneki tries so hard to make it a point to call at precisely 2 AM. If Hide lets himself jump the gun right now, he might even say that Kaneki is trying to get someone’s attention…

The phone rings and Roma groans. She picks up the receiver and when her expression hints at exasperation, Hide can’t stop the grin creeping up to his ears. Roma scribbles the order down on paper and puts the receiver back down into the cradle. She turns to him.

“Well, what do you think you’re smiling at, Strawhead?” she snaps. “Get moving!”

* * *

It’s odd. Typically, Kaneki’s band devours five pizzas like they’re made of nothing. This time, there’s only one pizza and a single liter of Coke sitting in the box behind Hide as he zips along the not-too-busy streets of Shinjuku. _Hmm._

The Blue Ghouls’ practice area is the basement of a medium-sized office building in one of the love hotel districts. The building is owned by one of the band members’ former bosses—a woman named Rize Something-Or-Other—who, after some begging, relented and let them use the empty basement as they liked, provided that they pay a nightly fee for it. The fee, Kaneki once mentioned, isn’t so high. They can easily afford to use the place six nights out of seven, but their youngest members, two siblings, are the problem on weekdays. Their dad isn’t so keen on the idea of them staying out so late on school nights.

Hide stops the moped in front of Rize’s office building and takes off his helmet to hang on one of the handles. He pulls out his cap from his back pocket and adjusts it on his head. Swinging one leg over the handles, he dismounts and gets the pizza and Coke out of the insulated box sitting behind his seat. He checks the receipt taped onto the pizza box one last time before walking into the building. The guard at the reception area is snoring away so Hide places the food on the countertop before signing his name into the logbook. He doesn’t bother waking the man up.

He takes the stairs down to the basement and pauses at the door leading into The Blue Ghouls’ practice area. Sliding the plastic bag carrying the Coke bottle down his arm, he takes off his cap, places it on the pizza box, and runs his hand through his damp locks a couple of times to get rid of the hat hair. He blows a long, silent whistle before putting the cap back on and knocking on the door.

“Pierrot Pizza delivery for a Ken Kaneki!” he announces.

He hears several things fall over with near endless clattering and a loud expletive on the other side of the door. Kaneki’s voice drifts through to his ears. “Hold on, I’ll be there in a second.”

“Are you sure you don’t need help in there, Kaneki?” Hide asks, stifling a laugh.

“I’m sure. Stay right where you are.”

“Don’t worry—all part of the job,” he chirps.

It takes a couple of minutes but then the door swings open and Kaneki is standing there in black jeans and a hastily buttoned-up denim polo with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His white hair is even more disheveled than it normally is (and that’s saying something) and he beams when he sees Hide like he’s a pleasant surprise and like he isn’t technically here at Kaneki’s request.

The blond hands him the pizza and fishes a pen out of his jeans pocket and the order slip from his breast pocket. He passes both to Kaneki, smiling. “You know the drill,” he says.

Kaneki takes the pen and signs his name on the order slip and passes both back to Hide, who trades the Coke for them.

“Just you today?” Hide asks him.

“Just me,” he confirms. “They all had something to do and had to get back early.”

“No wild pizza party tonight, then.” The blond pouts exaggeratedly and Kaneki barks a laugh.

“No, not tonight.” He pauses, shifts from one sneakered foot to the other. “Hey, does your boss mind if I ask you to join me for a while?”

Hide’s stomach does a 360 turn and he’s not sure why. “Sure, why the heck not?” he says lightly. “I’ll even get you to answer a survey for her later. She’ll be glad I’m doing something to ramp up customer satisfaction. That is, if she gets it in her to actually leave her office.”

The white-haired singer smiles again and steps aside to let Hide in. It’s his first time actually being inside the band’s practice area and he lets his eyes roam around though there isn’t much to it.

It’s got no visible ceiling and pipes run up above them, painted black to match the walls. Two large speakers stand on either side of a set of drums to one side. Five mic stands huddle together next to one of the speakers like they’ve been haphazardly shoved there and Hide has a feeling they’re the ones that fell over earlier. Across the drums and speakers, on the other end of the room, is a long table and several plastic chairs. Two old pizza boxes sit on the table beside several scattered pieces of paper, a dozen pens and pencils, and a small tower of books that Hide recognized as Sen Takatsuki’s. Behind the table, pushed against the wall, are a stereo system that looks neither old nor new and a dented metal cabinet.

Kaneki walks over to the table, sweeps aside the papers, pens, and pencils with one hand before placing the pizza box and the Coke down on the table. He pushes a plastic chair toward Hide and both of them sit down beside each other. Hide takes off his cap and places it next to the pizza box. He tries to ruffle his hair again.

“Pizza dinner,” Kaneki says, pulling the box toward them and flipping the cover open. He catches Hide’s eye and passes him a slice of the pepperoni-and-cheese. “No candles, though. Sorry about that.”

Hide laughs and takes the slice. It’s hard not to blush, but he manages it like a hero. “I might not look like it, but I’m a pretty domestic guy,” he says. “Candlelit dinners in Paris? Psh. Pizza and Coke in a basement in a love ho district? Hella yes.”

Kaneki takes a bite of his slice before he mutters, “Right, the cups.” He jumps to his feet and goes around the table to the metal cabinet. He uses one hand to open the door and pulls out a plastic full of unused Styrofoam cups. He brings two back to the table. “You make yourself sound so easy,” he comments as Hide takes one of the cups for himself.

“ _Au contraire._ I like to think of myself as a pizza connoisseur,” Hide says, putting on a sophisticated air, even lifting a pinky as he holds up his empty cup. “Only the best pizza can snag this heart.” Kaneki pours him some Coke. “Oh, by the way, when’s your next show? I mean, I’ve never actually heard you guys play, but I’m kind of curious. Do you _really_ have a banjo player?”

“No, but we _do_ have a guy named Banjou,” the white-haired youth chuckles.

“That’s a horrible joke.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“Now _that_ ,” Hide points one end of a pizza crust at Kaneki, “is foul play.” Kaneki swats the crust from his face and Hide smothers the feeling of wanting those fingers to stay on his.

After a lengthy pause and two more slices of pizza, Kaneki says, “I used to study in Kamii, like you.”

Hide’s ears prick up at this. “You did?”

Kaneki nods. “Yeah. Japanese Lit. I dropped out after one semester when my parents died in a car accident. Couldn’t afford the tuition on my own, and my aunt’s not the best guardian in the world. Don’t get me wrong—I love what I do now. Music has always been a part of me, as much as, if not more than, books have.” He pauses and cracks a knuckle with his thumb. “I suppose finding out that you study in Kamii stirred some old memories. Which might be part of the reason why I can’t stop talking to you.”

“Makes sense,” Hide says lightly. On the inside, his heart is wilting like a cut rose left out in the sun. Just memories. It’s not like he expected more than that, right? “So technically, we’d both be in second year right now. Imagine if we were classmates, though. We could talk more often. Oh, but you wouldn’t be in a band if you were in school, would you?”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t.”

“How did you end up joining them, by the way? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Well…” Kaneki’s eyes sort of glaze over, like he’s lost in the middle of a memory. “Things were hard when I quit college. My aunt didn’t want anything to do with me because she never liked my family anyway. So I got an apartment and a job at a construction site. The pay wasn’t much, though. I knew I was going to have to skimp on meals to get by. I was losing hope. But then, one day, I saw it.”

“It?” Hide queries.

“A guitar by the window of a pawn shop, selling for less than three thousand yen. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I had a feeling it was the right thing to do. I bought the guitar even though I knew I was going to have to go without dinner for a week. I learned how to play it—not like I had much else to do anyway—and thought I could try making some money performing by the station at night.

“Banjou was the one who saw me first, a few weeks later. I was making good money already, but then he asked me if I was willing to join his band. I jumped at the idea of not having to perform alone. He introduced me to Uta after that. We talked and I made a good impression. I quit my job to make room for practice. We did maybe four or five shows and attracted a few fans. We met the Kirishima siblings when they were on the same line-up as us a couple months back. Since then, we’ve been getting more offers and word’s been going around…” He trails off and seems to remember that Hide is there. He smiles.

“Things have been getting better from there,” the blond voices what he can read from that smile. He nods slowly. “Wow. That’s one hell of a success story.”

“It’s not quite at ‘success’ just yet,” Kaneki says. “We still have a lot of work to do, but…” He shrugs. “It doesn’t feel like work because we all have fun with it.”

Hide sighs. “Must be nice having a job that doesn’t feel like a job.”

“Are you talking about yours?”

“Uh huh… Though now, I feel like I owe you my life story since you gave me yours.”

“It’s fine,” Kaneki assures him. “I told you because I wanted to, not because I wanted you to owe me anything.”

“Well then, I’ll tell you because I want to, too,” Hide says, smiling. “I told you I took this crappy job because of my bike and my headphones, right? They’re not the whole reason. My family lives in Kanagawa and we’ve never been rich enough to afford sending me to a good college in Tokyo. But my parents are kind people, and I felt like giving back to them, at least a little. So I worked hard, nabbed the Kamii scholarship, and begged my mom and dad to let me go. They caved and insisted on paying for my apartment here. They even bought me that bike and those headphones, as gifts for getting into Kamii.”

He stares down into his cup of Coke, reliving the words before he says them. “Getting here, to Tokyo, even to a calm city like Nerima, was like overdosing on culture shock. At first, I had no idea how to fit in, but then before I knew it, I was a sophomore with a crapton of friends. When I realized it, I got pressured to stay ‘in the circle.’ I went to parties, got drunk a lot… I did things I regret now. One of them is that accident. I came to afterward, when the truck driver shook me awake. I saw my ruined bike, my shattered headphones, and I remember thinking, ‘Holy shit, I’m _alive_.’ It was a serious miracle, like God had decided at the very last minute that I deserved a second chance.

“It hit me then, how much of an idiot I was being, wasting the efforts my parents were putting into my apartment. I just burst into tears in the middle of the road and I decided then and there that I was going to pay for what I’d done myself. I looked around for some part-time jobs, but this pizza delivery thing was the best option I could find. The payroll isn’t too shabby either. I’ve been taking my studies more seriously, and haven’t gone out of my way to any parties. I still go, of course, because I have friends, but I keep my head when I do.” He pauses, then runs a hand across the back of his neck and smiles sheepishly. “Well, that’s me.”

Kaneki hums and leans forward in his chair, resting his elbows against his knees. “So we’re both on the road to recovery, aren’t we?”

“Yep.”

He seems to think about this for a single, long moment, tapping fingers against his cup. When the silence is three seconds short of becoming too long, he looks up at Hide and says, “You haven’t heard us play, right?”

Hide nods and Kaneki puts his cup on the table before getting on his feet. He walks over to the stereo and his fingers fly across buttons until the music starts. It’s a little retro-sounding and Hide recognizes the tune, though he can’t place the song.

“It’s Moonage Daydream,” Kaneki says, stepping around the table. “David Bowie. 70s British song. This is our cover and we translated the lyrics to Japanese, though we did try to stay as faithful as we could to the original.”

“So this is you singing?” Hide asks.

“Yeah, this is me.” The white-haired singer suddenly looks bashful. He laces his fingers together and drops his gaze down to his feet. “What do you think?”

“What do I think…?” The blond closes his eyes and lets Kaneki’s voice wrap around him completely. It’s… “Beautiful. Your voice, it’s… beautiful.” Hide’s eyes snap open and he blushes furiously. “Oh shit, I said that out loud, didn’t I? Shit, I hope I didn’t freak you out or anything, I—”

Whatever he intended to say next is cut off by the sound of Kaneki’s laughter. The white-haired youth doubles over, laughing so loud, Hide forgets everything and zeroes in on how cute Kaneki looks and sounds when he’s laughing. When he’s done and wiping tears from his eyes, Hide is grinning at him—his way to fight off the blush that threatens to take over his face again.

“I think we both deserve a reward for everything we’ve been through,” Hide says before he can lose his nerve.

“A reward.” Kaneki smirks a little. Hide’s heart squeezes in his chest. “Like?”

“Like more pizza dinners by candlelight?” the blond suggests.

“Maybe. But I was thinking something along these lines.” Kaneki holds out a hand. Tentatively, Hide takes it and suddenly he’s standing toe to toe with Kaneki, one hand holding his cup, the other holding Kaneki’s fingers.

“Dancing lessons?” Hide ventures, his heart hammering against his chest. “Kaneki, you underestimate me. I’m a certified expert at doing the tango.”

Kaneki plucks the cup from his hand and puts it on the table. He guides Hide’s hand to his shoulder and rests his hand against Hide’s waist. “And how do you fare with slow dancing?”

“Pretty good,” Hide lies, gulping. Kaneki’s hand is so warm, he can feel it through his Pierrot Pizza uniform. It doesn’t even matter to him that he’s playing the girl here, even though he’s the taller one, by one or two inches.

“I guess we won’t have a problem.”

Kaneki leads him away from the table, to the middle of the room. When they start swaying in time to the music, the white-haired youth does something that takes Hide by surprise—he starts singing along to himself.

“ _Don’t fake it, baby_ ,” he sings softly. “ _Lay the real thing on me. The church of man, love, is such a holy place to be. Make me, baby, make me know you really care. Make me jump into the air._ ” He keeps his eyes trained on Hide’s and it’s making the blond doubt his ability to stay upright. “ _Keep your electric eye on me, babe_.”

Kaneki’s voice, both the real one and the one echoing from the stereo, wind themselves around Hide’s body. It’s paralyzing, how hypnotic his voice can be, how it sounds as smooth and soft as velvet but sharp and biting as an ice-cold razor. It takes you in, lures you with a light caress, then grabs you by the shoulders and sinks its mandibles into your heart, leaving you with that venom of venoms. Addiction.

“ _Press your space face close to mine, love._ ”

 _That’s him_ , Hide thinks as he looks into Kaneki’s gray eyes. _That’s Kaneki_ _to a T._ Mysterious at a glance, dangerous at another, but something altogether different in the end. Something that leaves more to be wanted.

Hide, without so much as surprising himself, wants that. He wants what lies just beyond what he can see in those eyes.

Chest to chest, moving in time with the rhythm, Hide laughs breathily as Kaneki sings louder then presses their foreheads together as the instrumental takes over the vocals. The blond can feel a heartbeat pounding against his ribcage, and it’s not just his. He bites his lip, smiling widely, and meets Kaneki’s gaze.

“Hello,” he says quietly.

 

“Hello to you,” Kaneki murmurs. The music fades to background noise in their ears. The only things they know are the two hearts beating as one and the two breaths mixing together between them. “You still sure you won’t get fired for this?”

The blond throws his head back and laughs. He leans forward a little, the laughter not quite gone from his lips. “Kaneki, just kiss me already. You know you want to.”

The words leave the white-haired youth stunned. He opens his mouth to say something in his defense but thinks better of it and clamps his mouth shut.

“I figured it out when you called the seventh time,” Hide says, unable to suppress the laughter bubbling in his chest. “You only had to tell me, you know. Or you could have asked me for my number. Or my name.”

“I—uh—um,” Kaneki stutters, blushing to the tips of his ears. Cute. “Your name…?”

“… is Hide,” the blond ends for him. “Hideyoshi Nagachika. But Hide’s much better.”

“Hide…” Kaneki whispers. The way he says it—so intimately and with stress on both of only two syllables—makes Hide blush, too. Kaneki inches forward but hesitates and yet again, Hide finds himself looking into gray eyes so close that they’re blurring together. “Hide, can I…?”

“Polite as always,” Hide laughs softly. “Go right ahead, _Ken_.”

Calling Kaneki by his first name might have been a mistake, but the bleached blond is still glad for it because he gets to see that adorable pale face catch fire again. To hide his own embarrassment, Kaneki growls—just a tiny, low noise in the back of his throat—and covers Hide’s laughing smile with his mouth. That smile all but fades, but it’s not to say the blond isn’t enjoying it when their lips find purchase between each other. He doesn’t even realize it when his hands go up, sliding into Kaneki’s hair. He feels arms circle his waist and pull him closer and he can’t help but laugh into the kiss because it feels great, wonderful, awesome, _amazing_. Even when Kaneki’s tongue grazes his bottom lip, tentatively asking permission, he still can’t help the grin that threatens to pull his face apart into two.

That’s when his phone decides to ring in his pocket and the two of them jump high enough to make any pole-vaulter jealous. He pats himself down and finds his phone sitting in his left front jeans pocket. The caller ID reads, “Demoness.” Roma. Hide smiles apologetically at Kaneki and fails to ignore those flushed pale cheeks and that disappointed look in those eyes.

When Hide picks up, Roma’s already started yelling so loud he has to hold the phone half an arm away from his ear. “ _… the fuck are you? Do you think you can skip work, you mindless protozoic Strawhead? If you don’t get back here and help me fill these orders, so help me I will tear you limb from skinny limb and I will_ enjoy _it. I—_ ”

“Okay, gotcha, Roma. Be there in a few.” Hide hangs up before she can say anything else. It’s always best to stop Roma before she even gets too worked up. She might actually kill someone someday. Hide has recently felt it to be his civic duty to keep that from happening. For now, though, he’s a little more concerned about the white-haired beaut—ahem, white-haired youth traipsing over to the stereo to turn the music off. Hide takes a few long, deliberate steps around the table and sidles up behind Kaneki, wrapping his arms around his waist. He doesn’t know how he has the courage to do this, but maybe it’s because he wants to see how Kaneki reacts.

“We have a show next Wednesday,” Kaneki says, his hands falling to Hide’s arms around him. He looks over his shoulder to meet Hide’s eyes. “I can get you a ticket.”

This time, it’s Hide who smirks. “Does that include a backstage pass and VIP access?”

“Yes. Yes, definitely.” Kaneki turns around and reaches up to cradle Hide’s face in his hands. “Pizza dinner?”

Hide’s hands go up to cover Kaneki’s. He grins. “Count me in.”

* * *

The Blue Ghouls sit at one corner of a twenty-four hour family restaurant with an air that’s absolutely fitting for the establishment, if Banjou were the father, Uta the mother, and the Kirishima siblings their children.

“I still can’t believe Angel Hair ditched us for that pizza boy,” Ayato grumbles, stabbing at his pasta. Touka elbows him and he cries out in pain.

“Aren’t you a bit too old for hero worship?” she says lightly. She pauses. “And, really, _Angel Hair_? Could you be any more obvious?”

Flushing bright red, Ayato snaps at her to shut up and nurses his bruising ribs. Banjou laughs loudly at the siblings’ display. “Hey, guys, I think we should be happy for him,” he says. “At least he’s doing something about those googly eyes of his. I thought I was gonna die when he tried to ignore it.”

“What was his plan again?” Touka absentmindedly stirs her iced tea with a straw. “I sort of lost him at the dinner part.”

“He was going for the dinner-and-dance routine, I think,” Banjou says, rubbing his chin with a thoughtful expression. His eyes grow wistful. “Oh, I remember when I tried that one on Miss Rize. _Damn_ , that woman can kick.”

“Uta, you’re being pretty quiet,” Ayato says abruptly. “What’s your take on this? Do you think it’ll actually work? Because I vote no.” He raises a hand and looks around, waiting for either Banjou or Touka to back him up, but when neither of them do, he sinks back into his seat, grumbling.

Meanwhile, Uta had been staring out the window without saying a single word. He turns to the rest of his motley crew and tilts his head to one side.

“Well, obviously, it’ll work,” he says, much to Ayato’s chagrin. “The pizza boy seemed almost as charmed with Kaneki as Ayato did when they first met.”

“I was _not_ charm—” Ayato begins to say angrily but Touka places a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s okay, little brother,” she says soothingly. “There’s always next time.”

Ayato practically blows up at that and soon the Kirishima’s are wrestling each other into the weathered restaurant sofa they’re sharing. Banjou guffaws and Uta smiles before staring back out the window again. He watches as a figure exits a building across the street and mounts his moped parked out front. After securing his helmet, the figure looks back at the building’s entrance with what Uta can see is a smile on his face before he turns, leans forward, and drives away, taillights twinkling like stars before they disappear into the night.

**Author's Note:**

> “Moonage Daydream” by David Bowie, 1972


End file.
